SOCIETY AN ORGANISM. 3 



with its acquirement of greater mass its parts multiply and simulta- 

 neously differentiate. It is thus with a society. At first the unlike- 

 nesses among its groups of units are inconspicuous in number and 

 deo-ree ; but, as it becomes more populous, divisions and subdivisions 

 become more numerous and more decided. Further, in the social or- 

 ganism as in the individual organism, differentiations cease only with 

 that completion of the type which marks maturity and precedes decay. 



Thouo-h in inorganic aggregates also, as in the entire solar system 

 and in each of its members, structural differentiations accompany the 

 integrations, yet these are so relatively slow, and so relatively simple, 

 that they may be disregarded. The multiplication of contrasted parts 

 in bodies politic and in living bodies is so great that it substantially 

 constitutes another common character which marks them off from in- 

 organic bodies. 



This community will be more fully appreciated on observing that 

 progressive differentiation of structures is accompanied by progressive 

 differentiation of functions. 



The multiplying divisions, primary, secondary, and tertiary, which 

 arise in a developing animal, do not assume their major and minor 

 unlikenesses to no purpose. Along with diversities in their shapes 

 and compositions there go diversities in the actions they perform : 

 they grow into unlike organs having unlike duties. Assuming the 

 entire function of absorbing nutriment at the same time that it takes 

 on its structural characters, the alimentary system becomes gradually 

 marked off into contrasted portions, each of which has a special func- 

 tion forming part of the general function. A limb, instrumental to 

 locomotion or prehension, acquires divisions and subdivisions which 

 perforin their leading and their subsidiary shares in this office. So is 

 it with the parts into which a society divides. A dominant class 

 arising does not simply become unlike the rest, but assumes control 

 over the rest ; and when this class separates into the more and the less 

 dominant, these, again, begin to discharge distinct parts of the entire 

 control. With the classes whose actions are controlled it is the same. 

 The various groups into which they fall have various occupations, each 

 of such groups also, within itself, acquiring minor contrasts of parts 

 along with minor contrasts of duties. 



And here we see more clearly how the two classes of things we 

 are comparing distinguish themselves from things of other classes; 

 for such differences of structure as slowly arise in inorganic aggre- 

 gates are not accompanied by what we can fairly call differences of 

 function. 



Why in a body politic and in a living body these unlike actions 

 of unlike parts are properly regarded by us as functions, while we 

 cannot so regard the unlike actions of unlike parts in an inorganic 

 body, we shall perceive on turning to the next and most distinctive 

 common trait. 



